Civic Engagement

Some time ago I happened upon a Steve Jobs interview where he shared his view that the system is stacked against the innovators of the world — when you grow up, you tend to get told the world is the way it is and your life is just to work and to live inside that world. You shouldn’t try to bash in the walls too much…work hard, have fun, save a little money. Basically, live a limited life.

Sadly, government as an industry tends to reinforce that creed. The civil service and compensation rules make it hard to hire talent and reward outstanding performance (and even harder to penalize poor performance); there is very little incentive for taking risks on policies or programs; authority and responsibility is scattered across so many agencies and actors that holding anyone accountable is hard; and a tangle of often outdated regulations and Congressionally-mandated legislation leaves little room for innovation. On top of all of that, evidence-based decision making is hard to come by (not a lot of data and technology lovers in government) and hard to do (because of a lack of organized and comparable data across programs and agencies).

I spent some 20 years in government, so I observed these challenges first-hand. Now, I was lucky to have served my last five years in government at the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), one of the most innovative and experimental agencies in the U.S. government. MCC has been pretty fearless in terms of publicly sharing its results, opening its data and its codes and feeding learning back into new programming. But even there, the bureaucracy of government (including Congress) constantly challenges intrapreneurs who want to drive an operating strategy focused on “getting to yes”, experimenting often, failing forward, collaborating across agencies and setting, measuring and sharing results. While these management challenges are not entirely unique to government, there are unique circumstances government managers face that private sector managers do not. (Jan Mares, a senior executive in the Reagan and Bush administrations as well as Union Carbide, does a wonderful job at outlining these differences.) Changemakers have to work hard and be relentlessly persistent in recalling Steve Jobs’ reminder of one simple fact: “Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you and you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use.”

And so today’s launch by the ever-influential and inspiring Beeck Center for Social Impact and Innovation of its new publication “Smarter Government for Social Impact: A New Mindset for Better Outcomes,” stewarded by former Deputy Secretary of Education Jim Shelton, is a must-read for changemakers everywhere. It is a reminder to those working hard within government now to drive innovation, experiment and focus on results that there is a movement afoot — a slow but steady build-up of outcomes-based policies and programs at work now. An outcomes mindset, the report argues, is an approach which defines at the outset the measurable end results you want to achieve, but does not prescribe the process or set of activities to get there. Rather, it sets innovation and alliances of actors free to test a variety of approaches, and it uses data, technology and new financing vehicles that incentivize doing what works. There are new financing models like Pay for Success in Cuyahoga County and Social Impact Bonds underway in Salt Lake City, New York and Massachusetts; innovation officers and centers within government; efforts to build alliances of partners collectively delivering against a set of impact measures; knowledge-sharing infrastructure like CITIE that helps policymakers create sound environment for innovation and entrepreneurship; and innovative hiring mechanisms like Peace Corps term limits which embed a rejuvenation and innovation mindset, something the MCC at the outset strived hard to secure but was ultimately denied. These examples and others are part of the roadmap outlined in the Beeck Center report that show those currently serving in government “the art of the possible.” The hope is that these pockets of progress serve as proof of concept for how government can work better to achieve the larger systemic changes needed to scale social change.

The report is also a call to duty to those outside government whose talents are required within and around government to really put into practice a new mindset for learning and better outcomes. Leaders willing to work across party lines, across agencies and with Congress to drive smart policy and allow for “smart failure” that will then inform future best practice. Data analytics experts who can bring the power of data and technology to the policymaking table to accelerate evidence accumulation. And mission-driven employees who understand the important roles that open data, open code, collaboration and transparency play in driving results for the American citizens that government is intended to serve – yes, Millennials, the government needs you!

Let’s return to that Steve Jobs quote – or better yet, to Ashton Kutcher’s Teen Choice Award speech where he “millennializes” it to three lessons for changemakers: (1) Seize opportunity: opportunity looks a lot like hard work; (2) Be sexy: there’s nothing sexier than being smart, thoughtful and generous; and (3) Live life: remember that life was built by those no smarter than you – don’t sit on the sidelines. Build a life don’t just live one.

Of the $1.11 trillion FY2015 discretionary budget, only 1% was allocated to specific outcomes-focused initiatives. Imagine the life we could build if we could collectively tip just a little more of those trillions in that direction.

The Millennial Generation is tech savvy, entrepreneurial and eager to make a positive impact in the world—just like the team at the Knight Foundation. The Knight Foundation works to revolutionize philanthropy each day as they support of quality journalism, engage local communities and ignite media innovation. They believe that democracy thrives when people and communities are informed and engaged. This month the foundation released a study focused on Millennial voters and found three-quarters of Millennials cited the biggest obstacle to local voting was a lack of information.

Carol Coletta, Vice President of Community and National Initiatives at the Knight Foundation, understands the importance of informed communities and increasing Millennials engagement. An expert on the development of cities, Carol shared with the Case Foundation her insights on leadership, trends shaping cities and challenges civic leaders face today. We are truly excited to learn even more from Carol during her talk at MCON 2015.

CF: The organization has embarked on several “city learning tours” that expose leaders from Knight to communities. What have you learned from these tours and the cities themselves?

CC: First, leadership in communities can come from unexpected places. There is no longer a leadership formula that is title-bound. You don’t have to have a certain title, including CEO, to shape your city’s future. Leadership is all about who can muster followers. Second, leaders with new ideas shouldn’t fly solo. It’s hard to get anything done. Therefore, we take groups of leaders from a single city on these trips so that they learn together and can reinforce each other when they go home. Typically, too, these leaders are not from a single organization. We like to mix it up with representation across sectors. Leaders from various cities are eager to learn from one another. People get new ideas from their peers in other cities, and then they form their own exchanges.

CF: How can cities increase civic engagement with Millennials in their communities?

CC: Accepting that Millennials are generally not going to engage on institutional terms is key. They aren’t going to show up every Wednesday to pledge allegiance and hear a speaker. So we have to accept that Millennials will reinvent civic engagement on their terms. It will be more informal and more episodic with more immediate and tangible results. We need to do all we can to make it easy for them to engage, including reviewing a lot of out-of-date rules and ways that discourage the kind of action they want to put their energies behind. On the other hand, we need to keep pushing them to turn their episodic efforts into transformational change and not ignore the hard work of governing.

CF: How do you see Millennials engaging in the philanthropic and community development space?

CC: One of the most encouraging trends I see is the move by Millennials back to cities — specifically to the heart of the city. And when they get there, they aren’t content to leave things as they are. They are taking over the streets with bike advocacy and parklets, starting charter schools, fixing up old building, hacking government data, opening small businesses, reinventing gathering spaces. You see it everywhere. For a lot of millennials, philanthropy and community development have mashed up into one thing.

This is the third post in a series of blogs featuring speakers from MCON 2015. Check back to learn about more innovators and leaders from the private, nonprofit and public sectors. Also, be sure to tune in to the livestream of MCON on June 24th and 25.

For many organizations, year-end is a time to reflect on accomplishments and lessons learned throughout the year. I think it’s fair to say that for all of us, both professionally and personally, 2009 can be described as a year of change, challenges and uncertainty. But we also recognize that even in the hard years blessings abound and we find some successes and terrific new opportunities often emerge – sometimes out of necessity.

As I’ve discussed in a previous post, the economic shifts that have taken place in the last few years have caused us to be even more vigilant about ensuring that we deploy our resources effectively and develop smart programs that yield meaningful outcomes. Recently, I sat down with the team to reflect on our 2009 programs and initiatives. I was truly struck by the breadth and depth of what the team, along with our invaluable partners, was able to accomplish. And of course, we learned many lessons along the way. I wanted to take a moment to share some additional thoughts on how the year shaped up at the Case Foundation.

A key priority for us this year was in the area of deepening civic participation – we kicked off the year with the “Change Begins with Me” campaign – asking people to make personal commitments to “be the change” in keeping with the inauguration of a new President. Recognizing that an effective government relies on a healthy, active citizenry, we were incredibly pleased to see in our follow up research that a significant percentage of participants had fulfilled those commitments. In addition, we’ve worked with President Obama’s administration to support their civic participation efforts including Summer of Service, United We Serve, and we continued to partner with organizations like the National Conference on Citizenship to help the nonprofit sector develop strategies to leverage technology to ignite civic participation.

In addition, across the philanthropic sector we saw explosive growth in the use of online communications – and particularly social networking technology – changing the way organizations think about communicating with stakeholders and increasing awareness. With the intersection of technology and philanthropy always at the core of what we do, we saw an opportunity to encourage nonprofits to make a shift from experimenting with social media to thinking about how they might leverage in a more strategic way to drive action. Through our “Gear Up for Giving” program, we helped to train thousands of individuals and nonprofits with the help of social media experts. We saw these organizations put those lessons to work immediately through the 2009 America’s Giving Challenge, which encouraged nonprofits to capitalize on both their online and offline social networks to raise donations and garner support for their cause. Beyond our own programs, the multitude of online giving initiatives such as the Chase Community Giving initiative and the incredibly successful GiveMN campaign, we have seen that there is a real appetite for continuing to understand the central role technology and social media can play in nonprofit fundraising and democratizing philanthropy. Could all of these programs be improved over time? Absolutely. But our hats are off to all of those companies and philanthropic organizations who are experimenting and breaking new ground to find a way to leverage “everyday philanthropy” and “technology for good.”

I also want to celebrate the successes and reflect on lessons learned by our key partners. Accelerate Brain Cancer Cure has had an incredibly encouraging year, starting with the FDA approval of a new drug, Avastin, for brain tumor patients (the first such approval in a decade), which was the result of funding from ABC2 in partnership with Genentech and Duke University, to $2.5 million raised through the Race for Hope in DC and several promising investments going into 2010. At PlayPumps, we’ve acknowledged challenges on the ground, but we’re thrilled about the new relationship with Water For People to leverage the PlayPump and many other innovative safe water interventions to ensure all people have access to clean drinking water.

This past year has yielded a great many lessons that will guide our work going forward:

Technology is king. The potential impact of technology continues to dominate the conversation in the nonprofit sector. As Steve has often said about the creation of AOL, the early days of the Internet were about building community and fostering discussion on a wide range of topics and affinities. Then, for a time, we saw a shift to a one-way conversation online, due to advertising and a focus on pushing information out, without a mechanism for taking new information in. Thanks to social media, we have returned to an online environment that is all about wide-ranging and diverse conversations that foster collaboration, bring new voices to the table and deepen relationships. More and more nonprofits are learning that social media must be core to their efforts; not an aside for the tech-savvy “youngsters.” However, as we saw from the response to our Gear Up for Giving tutorials and from ongoing debate in the nonprofit world, many are still only at the beginning stages of figuring out what works, and what doesn’t, setting the stage for big opportunities.

The power of the individual. In the annual New York Times Giving section, Stephanie Strom commented on the “new fame for the everyday donor,” noting the increased significance of individual giving during these economic hard times. While many look towards foundations, corporations and the government for resources, they often forget that more than 80% of giving in this country comes from individuals. Technology is giving us a historic opportunity to reach, organize, educate and mobilize masses to support complex social challenges – big and small. Thinking about how to leverage individual giving will forever be at the top of our mind whenever we decide to allocate any resources.

Re-thinking Scale. For many years we have been, and continue to be, champions of venture philanthropy-which seeks the most innovative models and infuses significant financial and intellectual resources in an effort to shore up the model and seed broad replication. While this continues to be an approach that works in many situations, we have also learned that sometimes we should think about scale in terms of making a local entity the best in can be in its neighborhood and exporting those lessons so that similar, yet locally-derived, efforts can benefit from what has been learned.

In the “old school” days when I was sitting at a corporate desk, I would have thought my current job would be simple – make grants and watch the good happen. However, in the past 12 years I have learned there is nothing further from the truth, and my team and I have a barrel of lessons (and admittedly a few bruises) to prove it. Yet, in the middle of stressful days I often pause and reflect on how thankful I am that I get to work with the best and brightest committed people across the sector to dream up solutions, partnerships and innovations to tackle common and long-standing challenges. We are so grateful to have the unwavering support of so many friends of the Case Foundation. I look forward to 2010 and pray it will be the best year yet.

As the summer winds down and we gear up for what promises to be an exciting fall at the Case Foundation, I thought it might be useful to step back a bit and reflect on our work – both the wonderful opportunities that we encounter every day as we invest in people and ideas that can change the world, and in the challenges and barriers we face as we work with our extensive network of partners and organizations to do great things.

Together with many of our colleagues in the philanthropy and nonprofit community, the macro shifts that have taken place around us in the past year have caused us to look hard at what we fund and to be vigilant in assuring that our resources are deployed in smart, effective programs that are yielding meaningful outcomes. And, despite the worst economic downturn in recent history and major transitions taking place in the public sector, we are pleased about the progress of the initiatives we’ve supported and enthusiastic about the new opportunities ahead.

One example for instance, we launched a civic engagement campaign in January to coincide with the inauguration of President Obama. The campaign, entitled “Change Begins with Me,” called on citizens to make commitments to “be the change” through small or very significant personal acts – anything from shoveling snow for a neighbor to tackling bigger issues at the community or even global level. Last week, we announced that a sampling of participants suggests more than 90% of those that made commitments said they’ve already fulfilled them. The number exceeds where we thought we would be with the campaign at mid-year, so we feel very good about those efforts.

But at the same time, on a larger spectrum, the Civic Health Index, released just last month by the National Conference on Citizenship, reports that volunteerism and acts of civic engagement are down in the nation overall, with the economy cited as the #1 dynamic influencing citizen efforts on these fronts. We’ve put significant Case Foundation efforts and resources toward civic engagement and volunteerism in recent years, and so the report reminds us that we still have a long way to go to achieve the kind of active civic engagement our nation and communities need and deserve.

Our main area of investment in health care has been in the brain cancer arena, through Accelerate Brain Cancer Cure (ABC2), an organization that was launched with an innovative approach toward accelerating therapies for brain cancer patients. The organization was created to be a collaborative that brings together scientists, doctors, pharmaceutical companies, universities and other nonprofits. When we launched in 2002, we knew it would be a longer versus shorter haul toward desired outcomes. For many years and through many millions of dollars of investment, we have worked with the scientific and medical communities toward the goal of new therapies for patients. We had a sense of slow momentum as we aimed our focus at the screening of compounds and increasing the number of clinical trials and scientific convenings that we hoped would advance the field and result in new therapies being approved for patients. Admittedly, as the years ticked by, there were periods when we questioned if our investments were paying off or producing outcomes at a fast enough pace. Then 2009 arrived, and it has proven to be a remarkable year. For the first time in over a decade, the FDA approved a new drug, Avastin, for recurrent brain tumor patients. ABC2 helped to fund the early screening of this drug in partnership with Genentech, Duke University and others that ultimately cleared the way for clinical trials and approvals.

In addition, in the late spring, American Idol’s David Cook served as honorary chair of the Race for Hope, the primary fundraising event for ABC2, in partnership with the National Brain Tumor Society. This year the event raised more than $2 million. Shortly after the race, David appeared on American Idol’s finale and donated his iTunes revenues from the recording to ABC2. Needless to say, the momentum and progress is very real for our investments in brain cancer and we look forward to even more developments in the months ahead.

Our support of health and humanitarian efforts in Africa has resulted in a portfolio of diverse efforts that span much of the continent. Investments in HIV/AIDS, malaria, clean water and efforts aimed at reducing extreme poverty, have opened our eyes and taught us much about challenges and opportunities of working in Africa. And they’ve taught us that each country, and indeed each village, in Africa brings its own unique characteristics, making a “one size fits all” solution to entrenched problems unrealistic and posing significant barriers to scale.

One example is PlayPumps, the initiative launched to bring clean water to African villages via children’s merry-go-round pumps. We’re proud of the investment we’ve made in PlayPumps International U.S., the fundraising and marketing arm for the initiative, and the strides they’ve made in helping to bring clean water to millions of people. However, after three years of working on the ground in Africa, PlayPumps has identified significant concerns related to maintenance of the pumps in certain areas. While the initiative has brought hundreds of new pumps to Africa – an outcome we celebrate – at the same time some mix of the scale and reach, combined with a downturn in the economy, has meant that local contractors can’t keep pace with the maintenance needs. It is becoming clear that the kind of scale we hoped for will not likely be achievable in the timeframes initially outlined. As a result, Gary Edson, a strong leader with both development and business expertise, was brought on board as CEO of PlayPumps International to help the organization take a hard look at the right ways to go forward with humanitarian efforts in the future and how to best take and apply lessons learned from our involvement to date.

As I write this, we are poised to launch our next America’s Giving Challenge (AGC) in the coming weeks. We are deeply in the throes of the advance work, helping nonprofits gear up and get trained to take full advantage of what we hope will be many thousands of individuals coming online to support causes they care about – and to pick up new skills to engage new donors and supporters in the future. When we introduced the first America’s Giving Challenge in late 2007, our desired outcomes were not just about getting individuals to give to causes they cared about through this new technology, but also to galvanize nonprofit organizations to get up to speed and develop expertise in this exciting, new marketing and outreach front.

That Challenge motivated more than 70,000 Americans to give to causes they cared about and helped prepare many thousands in the nonprofit sector for social network marketing and outreach. But we realize that as we take this year’s Challenge forward, we do so in an economy in which resources are constrained – both for individuals and for organizations. What will this mean to the outcomes for this year’s campaign? Will fewer people give? Will nonprofits have the resources to fully leverage this opportunity for their organizations? These are questions we’ve asked ourselves time and time again, and at times we’ve worried that this year’s Challenge may not raise as much money or recruit as many donors as the first. But the bottom line is that we know there is a greater need in our communities, our nation and around the globe than ever before. We’re willing – and excited – to go forward with this investment with the faith that people will support the organizations that support them and that nonprofits will be ready to take advantage of the moment.

We say that the Case Foundation “invests in people and ideas that can change the world.” If we had a crystal ball, we’d invest in people and ideas that WILL change the world but the bottom line is sometimes we can’t know for sure until we try. We’re committed to learning from our successes and challenges and to work collaboratively with others to share and learn along the way.

This post was written by Vanessa Johnson on behalf of the Case Foundation:

Spending time at the Case Foundation every week for about six months has been an amazing opportunity to see what it is like to really give back. As head of the Community Service Club at my school I am always looking for convenient and helpful ways to get my school involved in giving back to the community. Here are five of the best fundraising and community service projects that I, and others, have come up with that are more than easy to do at any school.

1. Food drive – One of the easiest and more direct ways to give back to the community is through a food drive. Collecting food to give back to soup kitchens, homeless shelters, and any other organizations that need simple but necessary food is one of the most helpful ways to give back. You might try making it a competition within your school. Whether you make it a competition by grades, faculty vs. students, or if your school has teams, it makes people really want to get involved and brings out their competitive spirit. Another way to get everyone involved is by offering a quota for food raised and a prize if they reach that quota. For example, the Community Service Club and the heads of my school collaborated to set a quota of 10,000 points. Each canned food item counted as 2 points, and each dollar donated counted as 1 point. If we reached 10,000 points by a certain time limit, we got a day off of school. Although giving back is a prize in itself, having a little incentive never hurt.

2. Blood drive – Although being scared of needles may be one of the biggest fears, blood is a vital necessity and giving blood takes no longer than a couple of minutes. It doesn’t take a lot of work to get in touch with a local clinic or Red Cross program in your area and partner up for them to come to your school to collect blood. This doesn’t take a whole lot of physical work and the payoff is amazing. To locate a blood drive or set one up you can go to these websites for more information.

3. Adopt a highway – Adopting a highway is a great way to give back to the entire community both in and out of your school. While, adopting a highway or a major road is a long commitment it is definitely worth it. As the adopter, it is your responsibility to go out to the site about once a month or so and mike up trash, paint new lines or cut down over brush. Keeping the road clean and safe benefits anyone who drives on it. And, usually that highway or road gets named after your school or at least a sign goes up saying, “Adopted by….”, so that everyone can see what your school is doing to help. Cleaning up litter on the highway is also a great way to help the environment and wildlife in your area. Here’s how: Adopt-A-Highway.

4. Charity walks and runs – Walking for something can be a tough challenge because it can be fairly difficult to convince people to take time out of their weekends to go on a however-many-mile long walk. However, if you campaign for it early, make t-shirts, or do things to get your community excited, it is very possible to get a large turnout. Doing walks can also be a great way for your community to come closer to together and to get to know people both in and out of your school. There are walks for breast cancer, brain cancer, leukemia and hundreds more. As the weather is getting nicer, it’s the perfect time to start planning a charitable walk through your town or city. Here are some links to help you find and set up a walk:

Sign Up to Walk Now – March for Babies

Short Distance Charity Run/Walk Events

5 Ways to Walk for Charity

Race for Hope

5. Service project for the Military – One of the most touching and helpful fundraisers you can do is for the military. It can be as simple as writing “thank you” cards to send overseas or collecting necessities from toiletries, to games or magazines, to food. Depending on what organization you team up with will determine what type of donations you should send. Giving back to the military is an idea that reaches home for a lot of people and is something that is incredibly useful right now. Here are some organizations that you could team up with: